Глава 13

1–16. Proclamation to the people of the laws concerning the dedication of the firstborn and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. 17–22. Journey to the Red Sea and the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. Ex.13:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Exodus 13:2. Sanctify to Me every firstborn who opens every lie among the children of Israel, from man to beast, [because] they are Mine. The firstborn of the Jews and the firstborn of their livestock were saved by the Lord from death on the night of Israel's exodus from Egypt (Ex. 11:7, 12:23). Saved by God, they constituted His property: “They are mine,” they belonged to Him (Numbers 3:13, 8:17). Therefore they must be sanctified, set apart (Exod. 13:12); the firstborn of people are given to the service of God, which undoubtedly follows from the subsequent replacement of the service of the firstborn with the service of the Levites (Numbers 3:41, 45, 8:16–18), and the firstborn of clean animals are sacrificed to God (Exodus 13:15). Exodus 13:3. And Moses said to the people, Remember this day in which you came out of Egypt, from the house of slavery, for the Lord brought you out from there with a mighty hand, and you shall not eat leaven: Ex.13:4. Today you go out [in the month of Abib] *. Exodus 13:5. And when the LORD [thy God] bringeth thee into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, [the Girgashites, and the Perizzites,] concerning which he swore unto thy fathers, that he would give thee a land flowing with milk and honey, then perform this service in this month; Exodus 13:6. You shall eat unleavened bread for seven days, and on the seventh day is a feast to the Lord; Exodus 13:7. You shall eat unleavened bread seven days, and you shall not have leavened bread, and you shall not have leavened bread throughout all your borders. Exodus 13:8. And you shall declare it to your son on that day, saying, This is because of what the Lord [God] did to me when I came out of Egypt. Exodus 13:9. And let this be for you a sign on your hand and a memorial before your eyes, so that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth, for with a mighty hand the Lord [God] brought you out of Egypt. Exodus 13:10. Fulfill this charter at the appointed time, from year to year. The fulfillment of the law of unleavened bread dates back to the time of the secure settlement in the promised land. In accordance with this and in another place, Moses says: “there you should not do everything, as we now do here, everyone, whatever seems right to him” (Deut. 12:8). And indeed, if during the entire period of wandering to the borders of the Promised Land the Jews did not have flour, manna served as bread (Ex. 16:35, Josh. 5:11–12), then it is self-evident that before the time of settlement in Canaan, the Jews did not have the material to prepare unleavened bread, and could not fulfill the law regarding them. Exodus 13:11. And when the Lord [your God] brings you into the land of Canaan, as He swore to you and to your fathers, and gives it to you, Exodus 13:12. set aside for the Lord everything [male] that opens up lies; and all the firstborn of the livestock that you have, male, [shall] dedicate to the Lord, Exodus 13:13. and replace every donkey that opens [the womb] with a lamb; and if you do not replace it, buy it back; and you shall ransom every firstborn of man from your sons. Exodus 13:14. And when your son asks you afterwards, saying, “What is this?” Then say to him: With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; Ex.13:15. for when Pharaoh persisted in letting us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of man to the firstborn of cattle - therefore I sacrifice to the Lord everything that opens the womb, the male sex, and I ransom every firstborn of my sons; Exodus 13:16. and let this be a sign on your hand and as a blindfold over your eyes, for with a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt. Moses precedes the announcement of the laws on the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the dedication of the firstborn with an indication of the reasons for their occurrence. The events that brought them to life should be a sign on the hand of a Jew and a “memorable bandage before the eyes,” i.e. must be clear, alive, one might say, tactile to the same extent as a sign on a hand or a blindfold is tactile. The whole heart of a Jew must be permeated with the thought of them (Deut. 11:18–19, 6:8, etc.), and therefore the laws themselves will never be forgotten. The commemoration of the day of the exodus from Egypt will be accompanied by the fulfillment of the law of unleavened bread, since eating the “bread of disaster” - unleavened bread - is a visual expression of the remembrance of this event (Deut. 16:3). Like the law about the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the law about the dedication of the firstborn of people and livestock must be fulfilled from the time of settlement in the Promised Land. Since by this time the service at the tabernacle already lay with the Levites (Num. 8:5–6, etc.), the dedication of the firstborn of people is replaced by the payment of a ransom determined by law (Ex. 34:20, Num. 18:15, etc.). The firstborn of unclean animals cannot be sacrificed (Exodus 13:15), so it is either replaced by a clean animal (Exodus 34:20) or redeemed (Numbers 18:15). Exodus 13:17. But when Pharaoh sent the people away, God did not lead them along the road of the land of the Philistines, because it was close; for God said: lest the people repent when they see the war, and return to Egypt. Weakened by prolonged slavery, unprepared to repel the warlike Philistines, who at that time were on friendly terms with the Egyptians, the Jews could not withstand a collision with them; they could prefer the severity of Egyptian slavery to the horrors of war and therefore return to Egypt. Therefore, the Lord did not lead them to the land of Canaan, in a northeast direction, through the borders of the Philistine country. Exodus 13:18. And God led the people along a desert road to the Red Sea. And the children of Israel went out armed from the land of Egypt. Instead of the northeastern path, the Lord chose the direction to “yam suf”, i.e., as can be seen from Numbers. 33:10, to the Red Sea. Exodus 13:19. And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph, for [Joseph] had cursed the children of Israel with an oath, saying: God will visit you, and you shall take my bones from here with you. Exodus 13:20. And [the children of Israel] departed from Succoth and pitched at Etham, at the end of the wilderness. Walking from Succoth in an easterly direction, the Jews came to Etham, which lay “at the end of the desert.” According to Chis. 33:6, he was on the edge of the desert, and through the same desert of Etham, otherwise called Shur (Exodus 15:22), the Jews walked for three days after crossing the Red Sea (Numbers 33:8). And since the Sur-Etham desert belonged to Rocky Arabia, the site of the second Jewish camp was located somewhere in contact with Egypt. Currently, on the basis of one Egyptian papyrus describing the flight from Egypt of a certain Sineh along the eastern border through a line of fortifications, it is generally accepted to consider Etham as one of the Egyptian fortresses designed to block the invasion of Asian nomads into Egypt from the east. There is some indication of this in the name “Etham” itself, which is consonant with the Egyptian name for these fortresses - “khetam”. Exodus 13:21. The Lord walked before them by day in a pillar of cloud, showing them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, giving them light, that they might go both day and night. Exodus 13:22. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from the presence of the people. The difficulty of traveling through the desert (Etham at the end of the desert) evoked special divine protection: during the day, a pillar of cloud protected the Jews from the heat, and at night, becoming fiery, it illuminated their path. There is no basis for identifying this phenomenon with caravan lights. According to the instructions of Ex. 40:34, 38 and Num. 9:15–23, the departure of the Jews on the road and the stop on the way were determined by the movement of the cloud and its stop; the relationship between the movement of caravan lights and the people is the opposite. Likewise, there is not a single place in the Pentateuch on the basis of which one could understand the fiery pillar of cloud to be natural smoke or fire. On the contrary, everywhere (Ex. 13:21–22, 14:19–20, 33:9–10, Num. 9:15–16, Ps. 78:14, 104:39) this phenomenon is depicted as a sign of the presence of the Most High. You might be interested in: